Ok, so today was one of those days. You know, one of those days that would be better spent if your feet didn't touch the floor next to your bed in the morning. I'll spare you some of the mundane details, but the issues started right after my feet touched the floor and proceeded with an exclamation point at the end of the work day.

I was beat down pretty good - upset, perhaps even a little depressed when I got on the bike to go home. I had to go north. A cold front had come through. The wind was out of the north. Brilliant. I'm trudging home on a road here named Parmer. Its pretty much a highway, but its got a wide shoulder and is a straight shot home. A lot of cyclist use it.

There's one section that passes in front of a huge high school stadium. Tonight being Friday night, there's a game of course and a lot of traffic trying to get into the stadium. So much traffic in fact there are cops stopping traffic to allow people to turn into the stadium. They decided to do this just as I was approaching this section of the road.

Now, according to strict road traffic rules when the cop stopped north bound traffic I probably should have come to a stop too, even though I was on the shoulder. I was actually going to, but something in me felt a little uneasy. I figured I was just anxious to get home after my bad day. In any effect I rolled on by.

It saved my life.

Just after I passed the cop I hear mayhem behind me. The death squeal of brakes slammed on too late. I figure some idiot wasn't paying attention and was used to no lights on this section of road. He was on auto pilot -then saw the cars stopped by the cop too late and slammed on his brakes. He didn't have enough time to stop before hitting them so he swerved...onto the shoulder where I would have been if I had stopped. And he kept going.

I was rolling just a bit ahead when I heard this banshee squeal of brakes behind me. I could hear the speed as the truck was coming up on me. I realized they were not going to stop short of me. Instincts took over and I started to try and bunny hop the curb and get off the road into the grass, but that same feeling kind of took over. I actually veered instead a bit towards traffic. Right as I did so I hear a loud crash/crunch next to me and glanced over at the bumper of a large pickup a foot or so from me - sailing over the curb and into the grass sliding well past me. If I'd tried going into the grass....

Man, how do you count lucky? I was freaked out but ok. When I rode past the guy in the truck a second later I had the presence of mind to mouth WTF? as I went by.

You know, there's a day when we're all gonna meet our maker. Like Pcad says there's probably a Ford F150 out there somewhere with our name on it (heh - I think this was a Chevy actually). Someday we're all gonna go.

But I guess this just was not my day.